


The Reichenbach Truce

by Trobadora



Series: Sherlockiana [8]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends/Lovers, Established Relationship, M/M, POV First Person, Post-His Last Bow, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27804853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: The man I expected had received no invitation. I had sent him no word of the previous day's events. There was no need.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/James Moriarty
Series: Sherlockiana [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/908733
Comments: 14
Kudos: 16
Collections: Holmestice Exchange - Winter 2020





	The Reichenbach Truce

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gowerstreet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gowerstreet/gifts).



As time passes, and keeps passing, one inevitably becomes more aware of that passing. At sixty years of age, I was keenly aware how long it had been since last I had walked these streets with my own face - since last I had met freely with those who knew me. My efforts to infiltrate and undermine the German spy Von Bork had cost me a full two years - an expenditure well spent. England could look towards the future a little easier, and in these dark days, with what had already occurred and what was no doubt ahead for us in this August of the year 1914, such a thing was worth much indeed.

It was a warm summer afternoon, the sky blue and showing nothing of the coming storm. I took the few minutes' walk from Claridge's to Hyde Park at perhaps a brisker pace than necessary, anticipating the meeting that was sure to come. 

I had spoken to my brother. I had spent the morning with Watson, a balm to my spirit I had sorely missed, Now one more reunion was ahead. The man I expected had received no invitation. I had sent him no word of the previous day's events. There was no need.

I entered the park at Grosvenor Gate, made my way across and soon sat on a bench facing the Serpentine, knowing I would not have to wait long.

The man in question, when he came, was leaning more heavily on his cane than I remembered from two years prior, and after a moment of observing his approach, I judged it neither affectation nor disguise. He was some years my senior, and his injuries from a long-ago fall had been giving him increasing trouble with age, even before I had left.

His grey eyes were sharp as ever as he took in my appearance. Bracing himself on his cane, he sat down beside me. 

"Despite the unquestionable visual evidence," said he, his gaze directed across the water, "I must admit I have trouble imagining you with a goatee."

The evidence, as he put it, of two years' annoyance of a beard - the light shape of untanned skin on my face - had been thoroughly disguised with the help of the make-up box; most people would not have detected it. James Moriarty, of course, was not most people.

"I have been informed," I told him, "that it was an abomination. You are, in this, of an opinion with the good Doctor Watson."

"Naturally," Moriarty said drily. "Were it a more fitting style for Mr. Sherlock Holmes, it would hardly have served its purpose." He sat back on the bench and let out a breath, almost a sigh. 

I had not told him where I was going, two years ago. I had no doubt he had deduced my purpose before ever I arrived in Chicago to begin my mission. After all, other than my brother, Moriarty was - is - the only man to whom I never had to explain myself.

"It has been too long," I said. I would not have spoken those words at thirty, or even at fifty. At sixty, I still felt ill at ease with sentimentality where it could interfere with the course of logical deduction, but otherwise - well, old men may be permitted some eccentricities, after all.

"You left," said Moriarty. There was a smile in his voice, one I had not heard from him many times. It was not, perhaps, the expected reaction of a man abandoned for two years without notice. Not if he were any other man - not if _I_ were any other man.

I had broken our agreement, and he was smiling. I closed my eyes and turned my face towards the sun.

After the years we'd shared, leaving had been easy. 

He had once been the Napoleon of crime. Having lost his empire, his apparent death had allowed him to avoid Elba, and when he'd recovered from his injuries, he had known better than to attempt to regain or rebuild. It would have been foolish, he'd said when I found him some ten years later. It would have been dull, I'd countered, and he had not contended with my conclusion.

I could not have imagined this, then: he and I sharing a park bench, the joy of a meeting of minds without the threat of destruction.

I crossed my legs, pulled a pipe from my pocket and began to fill it. Not coincidentally, my shift in position allowed our arms to brush together. Moriarty did not pull away.

I had meant to bring him to justice, then. After our confrontation at the Falls I had not rested easy, knowing his body had not been found. There were no traces of his old organisation being revived, but I felt sure the man who combined such intellect with such ruthlessness, such disregard for any moral argument, would continue to perpetrate his vileness upon the world, would again need to be stopped.

My conclusions had been wrong. The man I discovered had instead found solace and stimulation both in the rarefied world of astrophysics, confining his questionable actions to the manipulation of his immediate surroundings according to his convenience - actions that could not be called moral, yet still far from criminal, and deserving of neither the hangman nor the equivalent of Saint Helena.

I will admit, also, that I could not bear to see the intellect I still admired destroyed without need. Something inside me sparked when he challenged me, in a way no other challenge ever had achieved.

My stalwart friend Watson, when inevitably I told him of what had come to pass, was not best pleased. Even today, he is not easy with what he dramatically calls the 'Reichenbach Truce', though it was not forged at Reichenbach but instead in a different country, a decade later. (The story he has penned under that title will remain in his trusty dispatch-box until all parties are deceased. Afterwards, may the public have the pleasure - and the confusion - of it.)

"I left," I said, lighting my pipe. Moriarty had agreed to some version of Elba, after all - to my keeping an eye on him, for the price of the stimulation he knew I could provide. I'd offered to make it a challenge worth Professor Moriarty's while - worth his attention. We were two of a kind, after all, easily falling to boredom. I knew the temptation of it. "How goes your work? Is it still spectroscopy? I hardly had the opportunity to keep track of publications, much less anything else."

"More slowly, without you." He turned his face towards me. I took stock of our surroundings; no one was looking in our direction, or close enough to observe. I pulled the pipe from my mouth, offered it to him. He, though not normally a smoker, accepted it. A cloud of smoke released with his exhale as he continued, "I do congratulate you on your success. Von Bork was not a common opponent."

He held out the pipe. I accepted its return. I had not feared for it - not any more - but with two years's separation, it was satisfying to see that our minds were still the same.

We had grown content with each other, over the years. I no longer feared what he would do in my absence. Moriarty's callousness, his vile crimes - they were not all he could be, were no longer what defined him. It had been easy to leave, two years ago. 

The Reichenbach Truce had fallen - I had thrown it down myself - and what remained ... was peace.

It gave me hope. Whatever storm might sweep the world in these coming years, I had beside me the proof that from the eve of inevitable destruction there could still, in the end, come _this_.

We had even begun to collaborate on a magnum opus, some years ago - _The Science of Crime and the Art of Detection_. One day, it might be published under both our names. Perhaps we will unleash it as our final bow, to see the stunned faces of the crowd before we depart from the stage. I should enjoy leaving behind a challenge.


End file.
